Marc-Andre Hamelin

Marc-Andre Hamelin

In a State of Jazz

(Hyperion)

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Don’t let the title of Marc-André Hamelin’s newest recording fool you, said Stephen Pritchard in the London Guardian. There’s not a single lick of jazz to be found on In a State of Jazz. Yet the improvisatory spirit of that genre—and all its heady idioms—permeates this collection. In this “energetic homage,” the Canadian pianist salutes four composers who felt jazz “deserved a place on the concert platform”: Friedrich Gulda, Nikolai Kapustin, Alexis Weissenberg, and George Antheil. In doing so, he reveals the music’s influence on the 20th-century classical repertoire. Even though every note here is written down, each performance “bursts with the daring vitality” that marks great jazz. Some pieces, like Gulda’s Prelude and Fugue, make jazz’s influence overtly clear, said Fiona Shepard in the Edinburgh, U.K., Scotsman. Others, such as Kapustin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, reveal it only gradually. One thing that both recent jazz and classical compositions have in common is a tendency to be abstract and challenging, said Bryce Morrison in Gramophone. The selections on In a State of Jazz are “arguably more brittle and sophisticated than uplifting.” But Hamelin plays “with such astounding ability and aplomb,” you can’t help but be “mesmerized by virtually every bar.” What makes this recording one of a kind is his “inborn flair” for the “wild, freewheeling” ways of jazz.